Classical Convert

NPR Night Dispatches

The other day while gleefully typing the praises of NPR, I (luckily for you) forgot to uncontrollably and unreasonably and excessively whine about one aspect of the experience. Unluckily for you, I just remembered it:

The problem occurs when you are lying atop your bed like a delightful angel (this always describes me perfectly) and something totally awesome comes on. And then you fall asleep before they tell you what it is. A variation on that theme is when you do manage to hold out until the announcer announces it, but find on waking that you’ve forgotten the composer, or the piece, or the whole thing. Kind of like all those other stupendous money-making/world-saving ideas you have in bed but can’t be arsed to get up and write down.

Like, the other night there was some Classical piece (capital C Classical, like, Mozart or someone) which had a theme really similar to a bit of the Shosty Invasion theme from the 7th symphony. I wanted to do a not-in-bed comparison, but can’t bloody remember either the composer or the piece. I think it had a clarinet in it, so that narrows it down to about 13,576 pieces.

Sometimes this saves me, which is yet another reason NPR rocks my socks. It has complete listings for Classical Music Through the Night, so if I can remember about what time the radio was on, or maybe the previous item on the playlist, the anonymous performance can be fingered.

That’s what just happened with the fifth one of these bad boys. I’m listening to C.P.E. Bach. Bet you weren’t expecting that. I wasn’t. But last night the last movement surprised the hell out of me. I seem to remember it sounding weirdly modern… almost like a 20th century composer playing the Baroque card. But that may have just been the bedtime talking.